64 responses to “The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Mexico Sermon”

1. 

   Keith Battarbee

   27/08/2013

   Granted, the debate about same-sex relations is acutely prominent in the Anglican Communion, as in many other churches, at present. It is far from being the sole issue of significance, even with regard to gender: the role of women in ordained ministry is also painfully unresolved in the Church of England and in fact, if less prominently, in the wider Communion. Moreover, as Alex comments above, there are also issues of church praxis in Sydney diocese (and maybe in church plantings elsewhere) which are potentially of major impact for the future of Anglicanism.

   I have to agree with Nick Brindley’s and Josh’s Comments. It seems to me that Provost Kelvin goes too far too quickly in reading Abp Justin’s “stigmatising of fellow Anglicans” as specifically and by default an offensive condemnation of the pro-LGBT position. In fact Kelvin (and Grandmère Mimi) are themselves falling into the reductionism of seeing this as the ONLY issue that matters. That’s not what Justin said, and it is dangerously exacerbating to read everything through this one contested issue.

   Reply
   1. 

      Kelvin

      27/08/2013

      There simply isn’t a controversy in the Communion about the ordination of women. There is in individual churches but not the wider communion. Those who think that there is seem generally to come from England.

      Sydney is another matter. In that respect, I tend to feel that there isn’t that much controversy in the Communion about it but that there should be.

      I’d be interested to hear from anyone who felt that they were in danger of falling into “an absence of any core beliefs, a chasm where we lose touch with God, and thus we rely only on ourselves and our own message”.

      I don’t think you’ll find many Anglicans owning up to feeling that might be true about themselves. It is inherrently an accusation.

      It comes from the office and person of the Archbishop of Canterbury and fits a well established Communion narrative.

      Even allowing for the fact that Justin Welby may not have intended it to have been read this way (and I’m obviously far from convinced of that) I’d say that using such language was dangerously careless and indicates someone ill-advised and not coming close to understanding the issues as they are seen in the US and Canada.

      Reply
      1. 

         Nick Brindley

         27/08/2013

         I really do think it’s dangerous to read everything with this one issue (important though it understandably is to some) as the centre of everything. I had the great privilege of having my Master’s dissertation supervised by Prof. Oliver O’Donovan, because it was concerned with sexual ethics and this is a domain where he has been a prominent conservative voice in the Anglican communion. While we disagreed on almost everything I came to see that his positions on this were based squarely on what he saw as core beliefs and not on mere prejudice or unthinking attachment to the past.

         In particular Prof. O’Donovan has a set of beliefs about the relationship of Church and the civil authority and on the nature and sources of authority that are radically different from mine, clearly founded (for me) in what makes Anglicanism a distinctive and coherent current and articulated through a Christology that I can recognise even if I don’t agree with it. Similarly John Milbank, another Anglican I can admire with agreeing with him, has a set of nuanced but in some respects conservative positionson sexuality that are based on what, to him, are core beliefs. These originate in a different part of the Anglican tradition but have a remarkable amount in common with O’Donovan’s from my, non-conformist, perspective.

         It seems to me fair enough that those of you within the Anglican Communion who want to follow those of us in the liberal Reformed tradition towards a more accepting position on matters of sexuality should be challenged to show how that is consistent with Anglican distinctives (just as we Reformed types have a responsibility to work the same things through our own tradition or give up the label).

         Reply
         1. 

            Erika Baker

            27/08/2013

            I’m not sure what you’re saying, Nick.
            You seem to be saying that it’s not about sexuality but about core beliefs that require a different view of sexuality and that if we want a more accepting position on sexuality we need to show that they are consistent with those core beliefs.

            So it is about sexuality.
            It’s about elevating sexuality to a first order issue and linking it to core beliefs to the extent that it becomes a Communion breaker.

            As we’ve had the sexuality debate and the Authority of Scripture debate you are asking for for decades, the only possible option would be to get to a stage where we no longer see it as a first order issue. Something it should never have been elevated to in the first place.

            Reply
         2. 

            Kelvin Holdsworth

            27/08/2013

            It is perhaps worth saying that people like me tend not to believe in there being an Anglican Church nor give a huge amount of credence to Anglican distinctiveness. We are simply a local expression of the church catholic.

            I know that isn’t everyone’s position, but it is mine.

            The only distinctive “Anglican Teaching” that anyone has ever tried to get me to buy into is the attempt by the last Archbishop of Canterbury to speak of the Communion as having a “teaching” with regards to gay people.

            It isn’t simply that I think he was wrong, it is also that I don’t believe in the church having such teaching and don’t think he had the authority to impose such a thing.

            I didn’t become an Anglican because I believed in Anglicanism. Such an idea is absurd. I joined because of where I found God.

            Reply
            1. 

               Erika Baker

               27/08/2013

               And there is no Anglican Church, there is only an Anglican Communion made up of various national churches. They are independent and there is no requirement for them to share “teachings”.

            2. 

               Grandmère Mimi

               27/08/2013

               Amen to Erika’s statement that there is no such entity as a worldwide Anglican Church. Justin is the second Archbishop of Canterbury to use the name, and it rankles. There is an Anglican Communion consisting of autonomous Anglican churches throughout the world. The archbishops may wish they had a church to rival the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, but they do not.

            3. 

               Nick Brindley

               27/08/2013

               I can see that, Kelvin, and I didn’t suggest that there was an Anglican Church. All I’m saying is that I have had dealings with two Anglican theologians on this matter and have been much struck, as someone outside your tradition, by how similar their basic orientation is, despite their belonging to different strands of Anglicanism (admittedly they’re both English, but the importance of England to Anglicanism is clear).

               It is quite possible to argue that the Anglican distinctives I see (which as I say have more to do with the relationship between Church and civil power than anything else, although the episcopacy and related matters to do with the apostolic succession is also important) do have consequences for the sexuality question (among others) and it isn’t unreasonable for Welby to call them “core beliefs” (although you might disagree it may be incumbent on you to explain and defend this rather than to insist simply that the sexuality questions on their own are so foundational that everyone should talk about them all the time).

            4. 

               Kelvin Holdsworth

               27/08/2013

               Nick, if you are seeing Anglican distinctiveness as being something to do with a relationship to civil power then you really are talking about the Church of England and not any of the other parts of the Communion.

               As in so many ways, it is England which is the odd one out, however important the C of E might be.

            5. 

               Nick Brindley

               27/08/2013

               In which case it would be well worth asking what the “core beliefs” in question are and whether there is really such a thing as “Anglicanism” since English Anglican theologians seem (to me) to be pretty consistent in their view of the relationship between Church and the civil authority and in particular about the responsibilities of the Church in regard to civil society. If English Anglicanism is so unlike the rest of the Communion then your Communion-wide debate needs to be radically reshaped, surely.

               This would probably be quite particularly difficult in Scotland, given the large numbers of English people, formed in and by the Church of England, in your pews.

            6. 

               Kelvin Holdsworth

               27/08/2013

               As I said some time ago, the only issue that the communion is breaking over is how LGBT people are treated. Other ways of speaking of trouble in the communion are simply euphemisms.

               That isn’t to say that the Communion would be perfect if that debate didn’t exist. It needed reform anyway. But the issue remains the LGBT issue all the same.

               English Anglican theologians may well be consistent in how they speak about the relationship between the church and civil authority. They are perhaps less famous for being able to speak of that outside the English constitutional settlement. What they have to say about that is pretty irrelevant to the church I belong to. One fancies that we all know that in Scotland but that many don’t in England.

               I think that the notion that people who come to Anglican churches (of any kind) have had their opinions formed by Anglican theologians is a charming one.

            7. 

               Nick Brindley

               27/08/2013

               It seems to me equally possible to say (as I suspect Welby is) that the issues about the treatment of LGBT people are presenting symptoms of an illness with other causes (which is not to say they are unimportant, symptoms are never trivial).

               On this analogy the theological debates would be a matter of seeking to diagnose what is wrong that is causing this symptom (and perhaps other symptoms like numerical decline and the mess over female bishops). If one accepted this then it wouldn’t need to be the case that anyone’s opinion was formed by those theologians for their ideas to be of the greatest importance to those trying to discern the correct course of action (on my analogy treatment).

            8. 

               Kelvin

               27/08/2013

               So, what’s the illness?

            9. 

               Nick Brindley

               27/08/2013

               It would, I suspect, be rather presumptuous of me as a non-conformist to claim to be able to diagnose the ills of Anglicanism but I think that the right place to start might be by asking what justifies its persistence as a separate denomination (a question every denomination should always be asking itself, in my view).

               Historically the denomination has a number of characteristics (as far as I can see):
               close association with the English crown and empire (look at where it exists);
               commitment to the episcopacy as the embodiment of the apostolic succession;
               liturgical forms as a major component of denominational identity;
               a high value placed on tradition and continuity.

               The underlying problems might be:
               these characteristics no longer command widespread instinctive loyalty meaning that many have no real reason to be Anglicans rather than something else and a consequent lack of deep cohesion;
               they are increasingly out of step with the realities of both Church and society (who values the Empire connections?) so that Anglicanism makes relatively little sense to anybody;
               in any case the historical denominations are a smaller and smaller proportion of the Church catholic with influences from the more dynamic (principally Pentecostal/charismatic) section being disruptive of their unity (HTB?!).

            10. 

                Kelvin

                27/08/2013

                I think that the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral offers a better place to start trying to work out what Anglicanism is, Nick.

                Again, your definition of Anglicanism as associating it with the Crown really does show how hard it is for you to work out what Anglicanism outside England (ie most of it) is like.

                The Scottish Episcopal Church doesn’t really fit well into your theory. Neither does the US based Episcopal Church when you think about its relationship with England over the consecration of its first bishop.

            11. 

                Kelvin

                27/08/2013

                I might be prepared to buy the idea that one of the great underlying troubles of the Anglican Communion is that most people connected with the Church of England don’t appear to have much of a clue as to what it is like being Anglican elsewhere, mind.

                That might indeed be a cause of the trouble.

            12. 

                Nick Brindley

                27/08/2013

                I’ve never thought the quadrilateral worked very well as a definition of Anglicanism (especially as a historical phenomenon). As an inheritor of a mixed Reformed-Anabaptist tradition (through English Presbyterianism and Congregationalism and Scottish Congregationalism) I have no problem with 3 of the 4. The only one that’s at all distinctive is the historical episcopate and even that is shared with the Lutherans. The relationship with the crown in England is absolutely essential to understanding where you come from and hence who you are.

            13. 

                Kelvin

                27/08/2013

                The relationship with the crown in Scotland is absolutely essential to understanding where me and my church come from. The Crown in England is a foreign matter.

                1689 and all that.

            14. 

                Nick Brindley

                27/08/2013

                Fair enough, although the Covenanters and their successors might well prefer my formulation and it’s very possible to argue that the post-Reformation episcopacy is an English institution imposed across the border into Scotland.

            15. 

                Erika Baker

                27/08/2013

                No no no, this won’t work.
                A young Nigerian doesn’t join the church because of its ancient links with the English crown.
                We join churches because we like the services and the congregations. And if we stay long enough we might absorb the preaching, the music, the liturgy and some of the theology.
                What I, as a foreigner and adult joiner of the CoE liked was its ability to be an umbrella for Evangelicals, Anglo-Catholics and more liberal parishes and to unite all of that under one Diocesan and under one Archbishop.

                You can analyse some historic and theoretical differences between churches but they are not what make people today join those churches. They are not defining characteristics.

            16. 

                Nick Brindley

                28/08/2013

                What gives a denomination its identity and cohesion and what makes any individual or group join it are two (or actually many more than two) different things. One of the things that goes disastrously wrong in intra-denominational discussion, debate or argument is that people confuse “what I like about my denomination” with “what my denomination is or should be”, leading to other people feeling that they are being disrespected, having their existence and identity denied, or that their denomination is being stolen from them.

            17. 

                Erika Baker

                28/08/2013

                Well, that’s an interesting question.
                It might explain why so few in the pews get worked up about the hot button issues.
                I do struggle to understand, though, how you can really separate the individuals who make up a group of people who worship together from some abstract historic statements about their denomination.

                If it were really about relationships between church and state and about historic links with the crown then the Communion would have dissolved long ago as different national churches have different links with their state and as the British Empire recedes into memory. I’m even sure that there are all that many established churches within the Communion.
                What they share, to some extent, is that they are Catholic and Reformed, neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant.
                The rest is down to the meaning and expression individual national churches and individual congregations give it.

                Today’s church facing today’s problems is made up of today’s congregations.

         3. 

            Nick Brindley

            27/08/2013

            Erika, all I’m saying is that there is a defense of Welby’s statement on “core beliefs” that:
            a) says that there are distinctively Anglican core beliefs and
            b) that these do impact on the sexuality debate as it has been conducted

            I should stress that I fully support the ordination of gay people and that the denomination in which I am a minister (the URC) has a permissive stance on this matter, with which I am in total agreement.

            Reply
            1. 

               Erika Baker

               27/08/2013

               Nick,
               I can see where we differ.
               You hear that there are some core beliefs which remain unexplained but which impact on the sexuality debate, and that this is the root of the problems.

               I look at his actual words here:
               “On one side is the steep fall into an absence of any core beliefs, a chasm where we lose touch with God, and thus we rely only on ourselves and our own message.”
               and I see an accusation that some of us have lost the plot completely, are no longer Christians in any meaningful way because we only rely on ourselves…
               This goes way beyond “some core beliefs that impact on the sexuality debate”.

               And the only thing we have so comprehensively lost our Christianity over that we cannot possibly be acceptable to the rest of the Anglican Communion is the sexuality debate.
               It must be. Because he supports women priests and bishops and I assume he does not include himself among the new heathens.
               And Lay Presidency really has never been a major bone of contention anywhere.

            2. 

               Nick Brindley

               27/08/2013

               I don’t see that he has to be saying that anyone in the Communion has lost touch with God. He could be (I think he is) saying that such loss is possible. Do you not think it is?

            3. 

               Erika Baker

               27/08/2013

               Nick, I suppose one must at least accept the possibility that that is what he meant to say.
               Even then, the alternatives are stark. Is that really what we’re facing? A complete loss of all core beliefs and a turning away from God vs. complete intolerance of everything?

               Nothing in your measured explanations of what the “illness” facing the Communion suggests such drastic alternatives as a likely outcome of a narrow path.
               It’s never been that narrow before. And it is only that narrow now if you locate the problems in one single issue that becomes a unite or fall question.

            4. 

               Nick Brindley

               27/08/2013

               Or alternatively one might conclude that this has become such a pressing symptom that it betrays the presence of a really serious illness. After all who would have imagined that indulgences would be the issue on which the Roman church would suffer schism? My impression is that there are people on BOTH sides of this particular issue who think it is so important that it is a communion breaker (there certainly are in my denomination). All I’m saying is that this almost certainly is because there are fundamental differences on core beliefs underlying it for these people (among whom I do not number myself).

            5. 

               Erika Baker

               27/08/2013

               I think what we really need is a return to accepting that local problems have local solutions. One of the strengths of Anglicanism was always that we could each express is according to the culture we live in. That’s why women priests never became a Communion breaker.

               Yes, if we are expecting Nigeria to conduct same sex weddings or TEC to shun gay people we will break the Communion.

               There is no reason for that. We could still try to get back to accepting that different Provinces do different things. And we could still step back and recognise that same sex relationships are not a first order issue.

            6. 

               Nick Brindley

               27/08/2013

               Would that not beg that question of in what sense you are a single entity? What is it that makes Anglicans Anglican and not either “mere Christians” or something else (Roman Catholic, Reformed or Lutheran for example)?

            7. 

               Kelvin

               27/08/2013

               But we are mere Christians. That is what we are.

            8. 

               Nick Brindley

               27/08/2013

               If you are “mere Christians” and not, in fact, Anglicans, doesn’t that rather confirm Welby’s fears (assuming he thinks that there’s something important about Anglicanism, which one feels he must to have got and to have taken the job he’s in.

            9. 

               Kelvin

               27/08/2013

               I’m happy to be a mere Christian who happens to be an Anglican.

               As I’ve said above, I’m just a catholic Christian. Anglicanism is just where I does it.

            10. 

                Erika Baker

                27/08/2013

                But I still don’t understand where the godlessness is supposed to come from, the rejection of all core beliefs.

                That is a serious misunderstanding of the participants in this debate at worst, unwarranted hyperbole at least.

   2. 

      Erika Baker

      27/08/2013

      Keith, I have not noticed a major move to break the Anglican Communion because some Provinces have women priests and others don’t. It’s straining the CoE to breaking point but not the Communion.
      Neither is lay presidency a hot button issue. There have been no heated debates about it in Nigeria, no accusations of falling away from the one true faith in the CoE etc.
      They are important issues but they are not what has brought the Communion to breaking point.

      My real problem here is that I agree with the ABC that we are in danger of becoming a small church. But that danger is the result of excluding “them” and dismissing “them” when we do not agree with them.
      And by saying that there is only a small path and that there is an abyss on either side, one that is so steep that people lose all (!) of their core beliefs he is becoming a part of the problem.

      Many of those so accused (usually liberals) are guilty of nothing more than supporting the full inclusion of women and gay people at all levels of church. They are being accused of no longer believing in anything but if you talk to them, their core beliefs are generally fairly orthodox, certainly frequently more conventional than my own.

      That is not what the ABC is trying to do, but he is speaking into a situation where accusing people of having lost their core beliefs is associated with the lgbt debate, especially in America and where it is an accusation also often heard from conservative within the CoE. He must have known that this is how his words would be interpreted.

      You do not reconcile groups to each other by saying that there is only one narrow path, that you’re the one who knows what that path is, that people on either side have fallen away from it and that they had better find ways of toeing the line.

      Reply
   3. 

      chris

      27/08/2013

      “Even allowing for the fact that Justin Welby may not have intended it to have been read this way (and I’m obviously far from convinced of that) I’d say that using such language was dangerously careless and indicates someone ill-advised and not coming close to understanding the issues as they are seen in the US and Canada.”

      As a lay person who regularly preaches at services, I am always being reminded of the importance of considering what people might take from what I say, and of ensuring that I don’t imply anything I’m not happy to stand up for. I expect no less of the professionals, let alone a figurehead like the ABC.

      Reply
2. 

   Robin

   27/08/2013

   Imagine this:

   Two men are at Harthill Services. They are, therefore, equally far from Glasgow. One, however, is travelling from Edinburgh to Glasgow and the other from Glasgow to Edinburgh. One of them is, therefore, on a journey which is taking him nearer and nearer to Glasgow, while the other is on a journey that is taking him further and further away. That’s a major difference.

   I would suggest that ++Justin is on a journey from somewhere far away (HTB Evangelicalism) that is taking him nearer and nearer to understanding and affirmation of gay people, whereas his predecessor, ++Rowan, was on a journey taking him further and further away from his original understanding and affirmation.

   This is why I feel ++Justin is deserving of our patience and support as well as our prayers. He may not yet be where we want him to be, but he is moving in the right direction and so I feel both thankfulness and hope.

   Reply
3. 

   Kelvin

   27/08/2013

   A warm welcome to brothers and sisters being referred here from Kendall Harmon’s blog.

   I’d like to respond to one or two comments there but it is a closed community, not accepting new commenters at this time.

   In particular, I’d like to respond to the person who said, “Well, I suspect that the writer of this blog, not being an American, has simply not had much opportunity to see up close the universalist, marcionite and other current TEC beliefs that are today more the norm than an exception in almost every TEC parish, particularly those in the cities. ”

   Clearly I didn’t go *everywhere* in the USA last year on my sabbatical, but I did manage to engage with Episcopal parishes in Seattle, Portland, SF, Chattanooga & others in rural Tennessee, DC, Chicago, Boston, Florida and NY, NY.

   I didn’t do badly at getting my way around the US based Episcopal Church and know a little whereof I speak.

   Reply
4. 

   SeekTruthFromFacts

   06/09/2013

   “If it were really about relationships between church and state and about historic links with the crown then the Communion would have dissolved long ago as different national churches have different links with their state and as the British Empire recedes into memory.”
   Isn’t that what’s happening now? It’s just happened over several decades because Anglicans tend to be conservative (in personality, not theology or politics). Many provinces are only in the first or second generation of home-grown bishops and metropolitans.

   “A young Nigerian doesn’t join the church because of its ancient links with the English crown.
   We join churches because we like the services and the congregations. And if we stay long enough we might absorb the preaching, the music, the liturgy and some of the theology.
   What I, as a foreigner and adult joiner of the CoE liked was its ability to be an umbrella for Evangelicals, Anglo-Catholics and more liberal parishes and to unite all of that under one Diocesan and under one Archbishop.”
   This comment suggests that sociology, not theology, explains why people joins churches. I think that sociology supports Mr Brindley’s contentions. If you read the analysis of English attitudes to religion in Kate Fox’s ‘Watching the English’, you’ll see it’s that apathy about theological questions is characteristic of (post)modern English society. In many cultures that is not a valued characteristic at all.
   Regarding Nigerians – why would a Nigerian become an Anglican? The liturgical style is very different from many Nigerian churches. I am not an expert, but I wonder whether its erstwhile association with the British authorities has made it appealing to the aspirational middle classes (which have given it the funds to gather a broader range of society).

   [Name withheld because of frequent travel to a country where nasty things happen to Christians]

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5. 

   Gavin White

   07/09/2013

   But sexcuality opnly came up in this debate rather late on – The Archbishop of Rwanda, the Archbishop of Singapore, another bishop from Rwanda consecrqtred Mur0hy and Rogers as bishops of the Anglicacn Mission in America in 2000, three yearsw before the election of Gene Robinson in New Hampshire. Of course that made a wonderful excuse for the British to start conmplain ing about North Americans not understanding the damage they did to the poor Africans – -the Bishop pf Gloucester has written that Acfricans cannot understand hiomosexuality ! The real issue is tax. In America. And the notion that a highly taxed America is due to the liberals in the Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyteiran churches – -who must be ousted. It is notewaorthy that the people running this campaign do not really care about Canada – – – the General Synod affirmed the integrity and sanctity of committed adulat same-sex relations, and nobody said boo — and on July 5 of this year by two thirds of each house ordered Council to prepare legislation for 2016 allowing same-sex marriage in Anglicanc churches in Canada. Nobody noticed. And Africans had this thing about AMerica long before Gene RObinson – -when I taught in a Kenya theological college in teh 1960s our American Episcopal NT lecturer aroused fury by mild biblical criticism, and the cry went up in Synod, “No more EPiscopals from America”.

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6. 

   Ken Tonge

   08/09/2013

   I am concerned that no account is taken of the difficulties caused, when assigning a gender to a person, through ambiguous sexual characteristics. The well-known example of the athelete Santhi Soundarajan should have alerted tha Canon Law makers to the problems of gender assignment. The issue of intersexuality has not been addressed so far as I can see. I have written on several occasions to various church bodies on this issue. But have had only one, non-committal, response. I find it quite discourteous not to acknowledge receipt of communications, let alone show that they have been read and understood. I get the impression that minds are already made up and any input counter the established position will be ignored.

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7. 

   Stephen C

   10/09/2013

   Interesting to watch the former Primus’s recent interview on BBC Hard Talk
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YYoxqd8Xwc
   I am struck by his critical perception that so much of the church has been cruel in regard to the treatment of gay people…and continues to be so.

   Reply